1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of imaging, in particular the field of panoramic or omnidirectional-like imaging.
2. Discussion of Related Art
It is well known in the art that panoramic or omnidirectional-like images can be generated in a number ways. For example, such images can be generated by either rotating a single camera fixed at a given point in space followed by mosaicing the captured images, or by using a catadioptric camera equipped with a well known lens-mirror system. In each of these cases, the resulting image(s) format and organization will be specific to the particular acquisition system used. Hence, aside from image or video encoder performance that is dependent on the type of acquisition used, a separate decoder must be used for decoding each type of image. Additionally, if the encoder directly codes the images as acquired by the image acquisition system, or a modified version of them which is still dependent on the particular acquisition system, the burden of computing the inverse mapping necessary to generate and display perspective images from the decoded omnidirectional images falls on the decoder.
The dependency of the encoder performance on the various captured image formats, the dependency of the decoder on a particular acquisition system (and encoding format), and the associated computational burden placed on the decoder are among the major disadvantages of previous omnidirectional representation and coding approaches (e.g., the ParaMax360 system manufactured by Remote Reality, Inc. of Westborough, Mass.). Also, previous formats in which the panoramic and omnidirectional image data were generated in the art are not well-suited for image or video encoding using standard image or video codecs, given the nature of omnidirectional-like images such as their shape, optical flow, and distortion of the image.
In the context of the need to store, process, transmit, and display panoramic or omnidirectional-like images, new requirements have consequently arisen in terms of their representation, coding, transmission, rendering and display. New approaches are required to enable a generation of multimedia systems where both the video and audio components reflect recent advances in the capture processes of still images and video.